Occupational Therapy Approach in a Children’s Ministry Outreach Program

The 16-week capstone project took place in the children’s ministry department of the Dream Center of Lakeland, a community center based in Lakeland, Florida. The Dream Center is a faith-based organization that carries out its mission through providing resources and services to the local community such as a food and clothes pantries, women’s health clinic, meal programs, accessible computer lab, and mentorship groups. Specifically, the current capstone project focused on the youth served by the Dream Center’s children’s outreach program, KIDS CLUB. The children served by this program come from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds and range in age from kindergarten through fifth grade. The focus areas for the capstone project were program development and education. The program development focus area involved the creation of developmentally appropriate curriculum and group activities related to occupation-based and sensory-based needs of the youth. The education focus area included the provision of resources and education to volunteers on effective behavior management and TIC strategies when working with the children in the outreach program. This capstone project serves as an example of how a consulting occupational therapist can identify a need within a faith-based community center and apply clinical reasoning to provide targeted intervention at a community level to children from low SES backgrounds